Tuesday, May 29, 2012

So just how much of a role did RPI play in the selection and seeding of the NCAA baseball tournament's 64 teams?

In a word: huge.

We have put together all the teams that are in the NCAA tournament field as well as teams ranked in the top 50 in the RPI but were left out, and the picture that emerged is that, with one or two exceptions, the seedings were done almost entirely by RPI. The selections process was slightly less so, but still RPI had significant sway.

How else to explain a Miami team that by any measure wasn't really a top 16 team and deserving of a 1 seed and hosting its own regional? But its final RPI ranking of No. 12 trumped it all.

We broke down the seeding with helpful color-coding to make this chart easy to read. Judge for yourself on who got lucky and who got screwed in this year's postseason field.